A change in attitude can’t be taught by an instructor. The driver has to want to change.
A long and expensive awareness campaign may reap more results. Making something socially wrong has worked for drink driving and seat belts. Perhaps we should pour a little more scorn onto speed, indicator use, tail gating, cutting in too close, failure to clear windows and lane discipline..
It doesn't matter what's done, the "anti-socials" will always find another method of spoiling your day. It's just in their nature.
 
Or we make the driving test harder. Yes there's a cost, but probably not as great as the cost to the economy as adding journey times to everyone's day.

Personally i think there should be a 3 stage driving test:

1. Before the learner is even allowed to go out on the road, a "CBT" type test on private land at a test centre to prove they can handle the basics of the car. After passing the learner should also be required to log a minimum number of hours (maybe 5) with a qualified driving instructor before being allowed to have practise sessions with a family member supervising.

2. The theory and hazard perception tests

3. A much harder practical test, to include dual carriageway driving (motorway might not be feasible in some parts of the UK) and 60mph country road driving, as well as driving in built up urban areas, etc. All learners should be required to correctly demonstrate both paralell and bay parks.

This would make the road far safer over time, and would also probably reduce the number of kids learning to drive to be just those who actually "need" to be able to drive.

That would be the ideal situation but instead of doing that the dvsa introduce "following instructions from a sat nav for 20 mins of the driving test"

On a side note more people lost their license in the last 12 months than new drivers were issued one the 1st time thats ever happened since they started keeping records.
 
I suspect at the time the limits were introduced, france had less congested roads than us?

As modern cars have got better, with better brakes, limits haven't increased unfortunately.

The german autobahns didnt feel particularly unsafe - although the speed differential between lorries at 60 and cars at 100+ was very noticeable. But i was driving them in a modern, swedish built car with a great safety record and a powerful engine. I would not want to be on there in a series landrover. But then i'd also rather not be on the M4 in a series landrover.

Yes its my choice to want to drive quickly on the motorways. But it's your choice to drive a car which isn't up to modern standards on the motorway. Why should your choice have priority over the majority of peope who want to get places quickly?
Yes but quickly is also mostly arrogant people. Tossers of drivers also who often dont .a look ahead and plan thier way. B dont concentrate and never indicate to tell other road users .and because you can go fast it does not mean your safe. .and you forgot one thing safe braking distances. The way people drive do not in thier fast vehicles.
 
You implied that it was either a 50cc scoot or a ped .... rather than an item the had both traits ...

A Moped, motor and pedals less than 50 cc which that will be, could be used on the road by the holder of a car licence. No need for a motorcycle licence or test. Anything over 50 cc, a motor scooter for instance, needed a motorcycle licence and test. Now stop being a pedant.
 
A Moped, motor and pedals less than 50 cc which that will be, could be used on the road by the holder of a car licence. No need for a motorcycle licence or test. Anything over 50 cc, a motor scooter for instance, needed a motorcycle licence and test. Now stop being a pedant.

Not me who is quoting the Highway Code for Motorways is it ?
 
Not me who is quoting the Highway Code for Motorways is it ?

I don't know what they are now they may have changed, but that is what they used to be when motorways first came into being. And those were the rules at the time for Mopeds.
 
I got pulled over today for going too slow on the motorway, speed was 45 to 50 as I wasn't in a hurry and trying to conserve diesel, I was told that there is now a law that says I must show consideration for other road users. I don't think it's fair that I should have to speed up to over 50mph just to please everybody else, what do you think ?

Though that does not apply to all parts of the U.K which is a bit daft, in N.I for example a learner or restricted driver cannot travel at more than 45 mph even on a motorway, which is dangerous, but not a fail in a driving test...
 
I don't know what they are now they may have changed, but that is what used to when motorways first came into being. And those were the rules at the time for Mopeds.

I thought you were all for keeping up with the changing regulations for mechanically propelled vehicles ... as they do change the wording occasionally ...
 
A change in attitude can’t be taught by an instructor. The driver has to want to change.
A long and expensive awareness campaign may reap more results. Making something socially wrong has worked for drink driving and seat belts. Perhaps we should pour a little more scorn onto speed and lane discipline.
You do seem a little obsessed with speed. Yes speed is involved in a lot of accidents but its rarely the only cause.

I fully agree that we should pour more scorn onto general bad driving - but its possible to drive fast well. In fact, its often slower drivers that lack decent lane discipline, indicator use, etc.

It's not necessarily attitudes that need to change. I'm not going to be arrogant enough to judge my own driving, but i know plenty of people who drive fast, but who drive well. I feel far safer sat in the passenger seat of their car at well over the speed limit, than i did, for example, sat in the passenger seat of my ex wife's car - and she never broke speed limits. However, because she never broke speed limits, she'd get far too close to cars that were going a couple of miles an hour under the speed limit on the motorway before overtaking, then be stuck behind them waiting for a large enough gap to move out. I'd look ahead, move out when safe, and probably pass them at 80mph like most of the traffic in the middle / outside lanes.

I felt perfectly safe in the passenger seat of a late model defender TDCI doing well over the motorway speed limit. I'd have felt less safe in the 62mph speed limited vehicle that we gave up travelling in convoy with.
 
I think my license says I can drive a 175 without passenger
A Moped, motor and pedals less than 50 cc which that will be, could be used on the road by the holder of a car licence. No need for a motorcycle licence or test. Anything over 50 cc, a motor scooter for instance, needed a motorcycle licence and test. Now stop being a pedant.
 

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